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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in Adrian's LiveJournal:

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    Saturday, May 17th, 2008
    1:25 pm
    Hardware vs. software
    I did quite a number of electronic diy projects over the last week, but now I'm thinking if "bare metal" is really necessary. Emulation for platforms like Atari XL/XE, SEGA Genesis, SNES etc. is near perfect. May be I should just get rid of all the hobby junk and spend freed cycles on something more modern.
    Friday, May 16th, 2008
    1:11 pm
    As a search engine, Google sucks a giant donkey *censored*
    Mkay, a very simple query "add usb to thinkpad 390x" results in many many many pages of adds from vendors trying to peddle 390x or memory for it at inflated prices. Thank you, but *censored* off.

    What I was hoping to find is some reference to people adding second USB 1.1 port to their Thinkpad 390X, since 440BX chipset supports two ports and 390X comes with only one.
    Thursday, May 15th, 2008
    8:08 pm
    S-Video out for SEGA Genesis Model 2+
    After years of browsing Goodwills and Value Village thrift stores, I came across the late version of SEGA Genesis Model 2. It has a slightly smaller PCB marked MD2 VA3 USA, with fewer chips, and a Sony CXA1645 video encoder chip instead of Samsung clone on the earlier Model 2.

    I glued female S-Video connector to PCB with some epoxy, teared a new hole in case plastic, soldered a ground wire and two pairs or 220uF electrolytic capacitor plus 75 Ohm resistor between CXA1645 chroma/luma pins and S-Video out. It worked from the first try. I'm running Sonic 3 for about 1/2 hour now, and will leave it for about 24 hours. If all goes well, that'll be my new dedicated SEGA Genesis, and I'll donate/give away all the rest of them (I have about 4 Model 2 and 2 or 3 Model 1 consoles).

    Earlier I did the same mod on regular Model 2 system, by replacing Samsung encoder with Sony CXA2075. That mod was partial success. CXA2075 is a superior version of CXA1645, producing better video output, but it also consumes a lot more energy. Voltage stabilizer on PCB overheated in after about 5 minutes of work and then game hanged. I hope that with CXA1645 I won't have the same problems.
    Sunday, May 4th, 2008
    10:49 pm
    Atari 800XL
    Summary: I bought a faulty Atari 800XL, fixed it, plan more improvements.

    ( Last updated on May 18, 2008 )
    Friday, April 18th, 2008
    5:34 pm
    Trivial matters
    Cleaned up my apt a bit. It still looks like a dump though. Need to do the laundry and then donate the hell out of my wardrobe.

    Got SEGA Pico for 8$, just to check what's inside. It's very similar to normal Genesis/Megadrive. 68000 CPU, SRAM chip, some custom SEGA ICs and CXA1145 video encoder. 1145 means it's easy to make RGB out, if someone wants one. Too bad I can't seem to find my digital camera.

    Phone was ringing, I didn't feel like answering. I'm not comfortable with the idea of someone asking me out, far away from my PC and my newly acquired WoW habit.

    I want to see some old movies again: Trainspotting, X-Men 1 and 2.
    Monday, April 7th, 2008
    10:44 pm
    Soundblaster
    X-Fi Xtreme Audio PCI-Express is just a DAC/ADC with fancy Creative software... That's why it's cheap (50$). I could've bought Xtreme Gamer (normal PCI, about 100$) instead. Oh well, I may move the old X-Fi Platinum in my main PC, even though it doesn't support HD Audio Front Panel connector...
    Sunday, March 23rd, 2008
    7:53 pm
    Windows XP 64-bit
    I got new DDR2 4x2GB RAM, and decided to move to 64-bit OS. Vista is too weird and slow, so I ended up installing Windows XP 64-bit edition. It works pretty well, all the drivers are native and certified, all my programs so far seem to work.
    Monday, January 28th, 2008
    12:27 am
    I know what's wrong with my home desktop PC!
    Yay! It's only memory. I'm soooooo glad there is no need to disassemble the whole thing apart!

    The memory in question is Mushkin XP2-8500 DDR2-1066 2GB (2x1GB) Extreme Performance Series CAS 5-5-4-12. It worked very well until it died. Only one stick of RAM is dead, the other is ok.

    I'll try to RMA this memory if I can find the original receipt. In any case, I guess I'll buy an OCZ 2x2GB set, something like this: OCZ (OCZ2P8004GK) DDR2 PC2-6400 Vista Performance Platinum 4GB (2x2048) Kit Dual Channel. A bit slower then Mushkin, but more of it and cheaper :)
    Wednesday, January 16th, 2008
    11:32 pm
    4400 kaput!
    I finished watching 4400 show. It was very cool in first season, ok in second, a bit soapy in third and totally "we run out of decent ideas" in last, fourth season. The last episode is pretty good, gives a bit of resolution to the story arc.

    It was time well wasted, but I'll never watch any reruns of it or get all excited about possible un-cancelation.

    I'll rate it 7/10 on imdb
    Monday, January 7th, 2008
    10:15 pm
    Завтра мне будут рут канал делать, а у меня почему-то настроение - хоть пляши :)
    Я конечно знаю почему :) Я трещал весь день с подружкой из Эдмонтона, а потом когда покупал новый свитер и флис, со мной пофлиртовала оч красивая девчушка!

    Вот так то, братья креведы! Бросайте наркотеги, клей и политуру. Общайтесь побольше с прекрасным полом!
    Thursday, December 6th, 2007
    12:47 am
    Xbox 360 fall update
    Мда - новый апдэйт добавил возможность проигрывать XviD/DivX потоки в AVI контейнере. Я потестировал проигрывание разных файлов - всё работает замечательно. Не думал что M$ всётаки это сделают. Tversity уже обновился - теперь XviD/DivX потоки заливаются по сети как есть, без перекодирования. Надо будет потестировать проигрывание из файлов MKV и OGM через Tversity.
    Monday, December 3rd, 2007
    12:48 pm
    Что Вы делаете со своими старыми компьютерами?
    Руки не поднимаются просто так отдать в гудвилс, а продать такое горе уже наверно и за 50$ не реально.

    Thermaltake Xaser корпус с окном
    A7N8X-E Deluxe motherboard
    Athlon XP 2500+ (Barton) with Zalman Cu cooler (не помню модель)
    2x512MB DDR-400 OCZ Gold kit
    80GB Maxtor SATA HDD
    NEC 3550A DVD-RW
    ASUS Geforcee 6600GT (128MB)
    Thursday, November 29th, 2007
    10:38 pm
    Новости с полей
    Прошил flashme v8 в Nintendo DS Lite. Больше не будет предупреждать об опастности эпилепсии. И M3 Simply будет работать всегда, без необходимости предварительного запуска на толстой DS для поправки содержимого SRAM.

    Купил и прикрутил slim Lite-On DVD-RW в мусорный ноутбук (Pentium III 450MHz, 12GB HDD, 196MB RAM). Вроде работает, но я никак не решусь какую OS на него ставить. Скорее всего Ubuntu. Не уверен, стоит ли покупать Li-Ion батарею под этот компьютер с eBay-я.

    Получил сегодня два DIMM-а на халяву. Проверил их - один оказался 32MB PC-66, а второй 128MB PC-133.

    В Guild Wars вышел бонус пак. Это прикольные миссии, и в награду дают классное золотое оружие.

    Купил flash drive OCZ Rally2 4GB. Он подох в компьютере коллеги по работе. Поменял, вроде пока работает.

    Надоумили меня посмотреть на 2гёрлс1кап, и сиквел 2гёрлс1финга. Фу гадость какая. Но почему народ при просмотре блюёт я не врубаюсь :)
    Thursday, November 22nd, 2007
    7:14 pm
    Final solution for Vista
    I can forgive the frame rate drop, I can forgive 10x boot time, but network lag? It was too much for an MMO addict like myself, and so, rest in peace, Vista. At least until SP2 or something. Also, Vista doesn't allow to read/write non-standard 3.5" floppies (1.6MB) from BUNG Game Doctor SF7. A minor annoyance, but still...

    In other news:

    - PowerPak is a dead fish on all authentic Famicom systems. I still have to try the US top loader, but using RF for output is plain painful and no class;

    - I need some info on how to fix (at least for a shot while) a NiCd laptop battery. Should I pour some acid in or something? I need this to update BIOS on a 1999 laptop with a dead battery;

    - I got to find a decent after-market laptop power supply. 60W should suffice.
    Monday, November 19th, 2007
    11:37 pm
    My domain is gonna take few days to move
    I hope this dreamhost company will work out. I'm so excited, my own site on a lamp server! I just got to unearth those rusty php skills (used it a lot in 2000-2002).
    12:22 pm
    I finally did it...
    With all the Web 2.0 pressure, I finally gave in and bought hosting for 3 years :)

    Right now I'm moving my domain name (oboroc.com) to dreamhost, so it's all in one place.
    Sunday, November 18th, 2007
    10:35 pm
    Всётаки поставил себе висту на домашний десктоп
    Ультимэйт 32-битную. Вроде всё поставилось хорошо, гилд ворс работает приемлимо.
    Tuesday, October 30th, 2007
    9:13 pm
    Vista is a fucking disaster for gaming
    What the fuck did Microsoft think? Guild Wars went from 150fps to 10-30fps. WTF? WTF indeed.
    Saturday, October 27th, 2007
    2:00 am
    Наконец-то посмотрел Resident Evil Extinction и 28 Weeks Later
    RE3 - какой то ламерский фильм, если бы не классные актёры, то быд бы полный трэш. Всяким там сценаристам и прочим директорам - неуд :)

    А 28 Weeks Later довольно хорошо получился, за исключением вертолёта-газонокосилки.
    Friday, October 26th, 2007
    1:41 pm
    NES flash cart
    Retrozone PowerPak

    powerpakbig
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